Sleepless Night (2012)
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 25
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.9/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 889
My Rating
Movie Info
Vincent is a well-respected cop, as well as a devoted husband and father. But below the surface of his idyllic life, Vincent is involved with a very dangerous group of gangsters and drug dealers. When Vincent and his partner are caught stealing a massive quantity of cocaine from a powerful drug lord, the darker side of Vincent's life threatens to destroy his family and career. In a race against the clock, Vincent must return the drugs in order to save his son's life. This proves to be easier
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Cast
-
Dominique Bettenfeld
Alex -
Adel Bencherif
Abel -
Julien Boisselier
Lacombe -
Cécile Boland
Barmaid -
Lizzie Brocheré
Vignali -
Catalina Denis
Julia -
Serge Riaboukine
Marciano -
Samy Seghir
Thomas -
Tomer Gazit Sisley
Vincent -
Joey Starr
Feydek -
Laurent Stocker
Manuel -
Birol ??nel
Yilmaz -
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All Critics (25) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (24) | Rotten (1)
The plot is clever yet breathtakingly simple, the action is relentless but logical, and the lead role is tailor-made for Hollywood's A-list action stars.
Top CriticThe story is loaded with implausibilities, but it moves so quickly you won't have long to dwell on them, and there are a number of neatly executed reversals.
It's fast, lean, satisfying, and forgettable; nothing special, really, until you realize that the movies have largely lost the knack for brisk mayhem like this.
The sort of stripped-down, Francophone picture that's been spoiling American action fans over the last few years. There are no Cuisinarted fight scenes, no pauses for awkward romantic subplots.
Charging from one beating to another, wrenching diminishing returns from drunken camera angles and cat-and-mouse games, Mr. Jardin makes Vincent's predicament as hollow as a sustained scream.
This tense French thriller never goes anywhere new, but nonetheless keeps up an admirable adrenaline kick till the end.
Breathlessly entertaining.
The great F. Scott Fitzgerald once said 'action is character' and by this notion, Vincent is a goddamn great character.
The old comedian's adage 'If they buy the set-up, they buy the gag' is particularly pertinent to the grandly implausible premise of Sleepless Night, Frederic Jardin's frantic action-thriller.
The majority of this accomplished action flick takes place in one location on one crazy night and the result is a more intense, visceral experience than a vast majority of the Hollywood blockbusters you could see this Summer movie season.
Kind of like Oliver Stone's Savages or French director Fred Cavayé's Point Blank, but without the nonsense.
Sleepless Night is lean to the edge of emaciated with logic wobbles best not lingered on, but Jardin's control of tempo and tone is crackerjack.
Greyhound-lean and adrenaline-dazed, Sleepless Night keeps up a relentless pace once it arrives at its main location.
Despite the ongoing momentum, Sleepless Night never loses touch with its story.
It's a strong movie overall, and I think audiences here should get a chance to see the original before the inevitable sequel is released.
Audience Reviews for Sleepless Night
Take this movie's best scene, a brilliantly realistic fight between two middle-aged cops in a nightclub kitchen. These aren't martial artists so it's a delightfully messy brawl, every kitchen implement, even press doors, utilised as makeshift weapons. Jardin is obviously a fellow John Carpenter fan, you can't tell me this isn't a homage to the great alley brawl between Roddy Piper and Keith David in "They Live".
The nightclub setting is a neat idea but it could have been used to greater effect. There's an opportunity here to indulge in some interesting sound editing which isn't taken. The only time we hear music is when the action moves to the club's dancefloor. Bizarrely every other location in the club is completely silent. Being a part-time DJ myself, something I've always been curious to see is a movie whose soundtrack isn't scored but rather mixed by a DJ. If ever there was an opportunity to explore this idea it's this movie. I really feel the film-makers have missed a trick here, not just creatively but it wouldn't hurt the movie's marketing if it had a soundtrack album by a top DJ.
Jardin is great as the uber-stressed cop who keeps digging himself deeper into trouble. You'd never get a lead actor with his non conventional looks in an American thriller, even in France it's quite daring to cast an Arab as your leading man. The casting overall is pretty good, lot's of the sort of great wrinkled faces you only seem to get in French movies. The one letdown is Brochere who just looks ridiculously young and pretty to be an undercover detective.
It was really no more than a time passer for this reviewer but if you're the sort of person who watches every Seagal straight to DVD flick, you'd be better served watching something like this.
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- Sleepless Night (Nuit blanche) (DE)
- Sleepless Night (Nuit blanche) (UK)
Vincent: The rest is in a safe place.
Remember what happened to action movies after Die Hard came out? A lot of action films were made that basically amounted to things like "It's Die Hard on a boat" or "It's Die Hard on a train" to varied levels of success, but one thing was for sure, Die Hard changed how a lot of people and studios wanted to make action films. That has somewhat subsided in favor of other types of action cinema, ranging from the slow-mo escapades of John Woo-like films to the bombastic extravaganzas of Michael Bay features, or the shakiness inspired by Paul Greengrass's work on the Bourne series. Sleepless Night is a French thriller that feels like a call back to the Die Hard days, placing an ordinary man in incredibly tense, violent, and stressful situations within a nightclub. It is well made from an impressively complex level rather than a stylish one and features action bits that feel very natural. Some minor plot flaws aside, the film is solid.
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